Conscious and Unconscious Biases

Conscious Or Unconscious Biases

With the ability to build connections, impact lives and trigger emotions, storytelling as a communication tool has helped numerous enthusiastic policy actors achieve set goals and hit targets. Stories told by humanitarian communicators not only allow for inclusion and participation of an array of voices, but has also aided in effectively sharing stories about marginalized communities with audiences around the world.

As humanitarian workers extend helping hands across communities stricken by poverty, natural catastrophes, diseases and devastating uprisings, one of the major challenges faced by humanitarian aid organizations is the ability to communicate effectively. The persuasive power of storytelling has not only allowed for humanitarian communicators to reach doners and policy makers, but through their stories they have also been able to favorably exhibit the significant impact and stature of their own organizations.
As raising awareness becomes the major objective for many humanitarian aid organizations, ICT and development offer humanitarian communicators both the opportunity and agency to promote and encourage expression whilst also providing advocacy stages for numerous actors.

Simultaneously, as aid communicators play a crucial role in the presentation and distribution of messages to audiences globally, the issue of ethical storytelling rears its head. Stories that are being told to raise money for the destitute have been painted with narratives that otherize, categorize and dehumanize as communicators defiantly aim at targeting emotions. The damaging effect of narratives that perpetuate harmful stereotypes and power imbalances as saviors weigh their privileges and shelter Western nations from colonial and political spillovers only causes gashes and open gaps between doners and participants.

Photograph: Luis Villasmil /Unsplash

Whilst the aim of aid organizations is to drive change, it is through their stories (verbal, written & visual) that great impacts are made. Humanitarian communicators are often bestowed with the responsibility of being collectors, editors and transmitters of messages, and as such, hold the responsibility of delivering content that is respectful and ethical. This may mean publishing stories that does not exploit or negatively stigmatize individuals who have been linked to saddening events. It can also mean honestly promoting stories that are not caught up in rhetorics that are emotionally charged by actors who fear losing support.

In the following posts, I will be exploring negative patterns of storytelling used in the humanitarian world in order to drive doners. Specifically, I hope to look at issues such as;
Have narratives evolved or does automatically thinking sometimes mean harmful thinking for communicators? Are ‘hero aid’ portrayals of the developing world dehumanizing to many participants? How does negative assumptions lead to stereotypes made by humanitarian communicators?

Are some of the approaches being used by humanitarian communicators hindering change?

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